burn treatment without borders

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Burn Treatment Without Borders

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According to the director of Rambam’s Burn Unit, burn is the greatest trauma a human being can sustain. The unit’s highly trained and compassionate staff adopts innovative methods, medicines and dressings to ease the distress of their patients, a disproportionate number of whom are Israeli Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews and residents of Palestinian Authority areas.

Earlier this year, a house fire in Gaza badly burned a young mother her three-year old son. In the same fire, the woman’s daughter perished. Brought to Rambam, the mother, unconscious, and child were hospitalized in different units. Volunteers from the Burn Unit staff sat by the boy around the clock, and upon the mother’s return to consciousness, accompanied her on her first visit to the severely injured child. Departing from standard practice, the hospital allowed the pair to remain together in the same unit.

Rambam’s Burn Unit staff in action.
Photo credit: Pioter Fliter.

The staff saw the mother and child through months of treatment and healing, and upon their recuperation, were released. The two return to Rambam for checkups, tearfully embracing their doctors and nurses at every visit.

“Here, all the gaps close, there is no anger, no hard feeling,” says Head Nurse in the Plastic Surgery Department, Burn Unit, Sima Ben Shitrit, who has worked with burn patients for 20 years. “These people – from places like Gaza, Jenin and Nablus – are often alone and cut off from their families.
The entire team shows great empathy to these patients and is extra-sensitive to their needs. We often bring them clothes, toothbrushes and special food that they like.”

Of the 200 patients hospitalized yearly at the Burn Unit, there are a disproportionately large number of Israeli Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Palestinians. Unit staff speculate that the large families and low socio-economic status that sometimes characterize these populations may lead to overburdened parents, and ultimately to household accidents. Those injured in work accidents – especially in industrial Haifa – are also regularly treated at the unit. Other common burn casualties include new immigrant factory workers unaccustomed to hazardous workplaces.

Rambam’s Burn Unit is a multi-disciplinary effort. Director of the Department of Plastic Surgery Prof. Ullman, who oversees the Burn Unit, explains, “Psychologists and psychiatrists work with burn patients to counter post-trauma disorder. Cardiologists, internists, gynecologists, nephrologists and infectious medicine experts may consult.”
“Burn is the greatest trauma a human being can sustain,” continues Prof. Ullman, “It is not just on the skin’s surface, but involves the lungs, blood, electrolytes and balance of fluids, and may require repeated operations and their inherent trauma. After the ordeal of healing, burn victims may bear disfiguring scars for life.”

To ease patients’ suffering, unit staff adopt measures like changing bandages under anesthesia, and liberally administering narcotics. To further advance these efforts, unit researchers work to develop innovative dressings and drugs that accelerate healing.
“Treating burns demands great will, sensitivity and motivation,” says Sima Ben Shitrit. “More than any other patients in the hospital, our patients value the work of the staff and we often become connected for life.”